Accused jailer loses his job

Troy Bohannon

A Sylvania man has lost his job as an Effingham County corrections officer after being arrested earlier this month on charges he sent obscene messages online to a teenager.

Troy Bohannon, 45, was arrested June 9 and charged with obscene Internet contact with a child, a felony. Bohannon had been working as a jailer at Effingham County Prison.

“As of June 15, 2014, he is no longer employed at Effingham County Prison,” said Deputy Warden Vickie Brown.

Bohannon initially contacted the teenage girl in-person and continued to do so through social media, according to investigators.

“The grandparent of an underage child became aware that Bohannon was contacting the child inappropriately, first in-person and then online,” said Effingham County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Detective David Ehsanipoor.

The grandparent alerted the Screven County Sheriff’s Office, which then reached out for assistance from the ECSO’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Ehsanipoor said.

A task force member posed as the girl on her social media account and saw Bohannon send a number of obscene messages to the teenage girl over several weeks, according to investigators.